The boom is back?

Lending to owner-occupiers buying existing homes has increased 12% in five months, prompting The Age newspaper to announce that “The housing boom is back”. I was working flat chat from September to November, so there is a lot of activity. But a boom? I don’t think so … it’s still taking a while to sell some homes. People just aren’t buying the first thing they see on the shelf like they were a couple of years ago.
Anyway, here are a few key figures from the report on housing finance in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics):
– real estate buyers took out $8.2 billion in bank loans, up $1 billion on October 2003
– refinancing of the home mortgage is big business, with $3.5 billion being moved from one institution to another (higher than during the boom of October ’03)
– lending to property investors is up 10%, jumping up 6.1% in October alone
In other news, the Reserve Bank people meet today to have a chat about interest rates. There shouldn’t be a rise right now, but some feel that a rise will happen in the next six months.